I didn’t spot this story at the time, but it is absolutely extraordinary. As we know, some  pharmacists object to selling the so-called morning-after-pill because it can act as an abortifacient.  In some countries the law forces them to sell it come-what-may. But in Berlin recently, a pharmacy had its windows smashed because of the owner’s refusal to sell the morning-after-pill.

A radical feminist group claimed responsibility accusing the owner of holding “an extreme view of a patriarchal society and opposing self-determination of women”. I’d have thought putting bricks through someone’s window was the extreme act.

In any case, the incident illustrates the sort of intense pressure a growing number of Christians are under to act in ways contrary to their faith, and the medical profession is a particular flashpoint with Christian (and other religious) doctors, nurses and pharmacists being told they cannot deny a patient or customer their rights – e.g. their ‘reproductive rights’ – on the basis of conscientious objection.

However, there was a noteworthy victory for conscience rights in Illinois last month.  The State had passed a law forcing pharmacists to sell the morning-after-pill. Two pharmacists took the State to court and won.

The State claimed that women would be denied their rights if pharmacists could refuse to sell the morning-after-pill but it couldn’t give a single example of a woman being unable to buy the morning-after-pill because of the stance of a given pharmacist.

This is one of the chief reasons why the court found in favour of the two pharmacists. It believed the State was being unreasonable in imposing such a burden on their consciences when no-one was losing out by permitting them to act according to their consciences.

This is the point. When rights clash – it happens all the time –law-makers and interpreters of the law should in general seek a reasonable accommodation between those rights.

The law in Illinois sought no such accommodation so the court found it instead.

Here in Ireland, the Code of Conduct for Pharmacists requires pharmacists to sell whatever is lawfully available in the State. The Code makes no provision whatsoever for conscience, unlike the Code of Conduct for doctors.

This is a huge lacuna, and it is probably deliberate. Still, we can comfort ourselves that dissenting pharmacists (are there any?) aren’t yet having bricks put through their windows.